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John Spargo. "The Greatest Failure in All History"
"The Greatest Failure in All History"
Table of Contents
PREFACE
I. WHY HAVE THE BOLSHEVIKI RETAINED POWER?
II. THE SOVIETS
III. THE SOVIETS UNDER THE BOLSHEVIKI
No. 994. Town of Melenki (Prov. of Vladimir) Feb. 25, 1919
IV. THE UNDEMOCRATIC SOVIET STATE
Article IV
Chapter XIII. THE RIGHT TO VOTE
Chapter XIV. ELECTIONS
Chapter XV. THE CHECKING AND CANCELLATION OF ELECTIONS AND RECALL OF THE DEPUTIES
Article III. Construction of the Soviet Power. A. Organization of the Central Power
Chapter VI. THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS OF WORKERS’, PEASANTS’, COSSACKS’, AND RED ARMY DEPUTIES
Chapter VII. THE ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Chapter VIII. THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’S COMMISSARS
Chapter IX. AFFAIRS IN THE JURISDICTION OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS AND THE ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
B. Organization of Local Soviets
Chapter X. THE CONGRESSES OF THE SOVIETS
Chapter XI. THE SOVIET OF DEPUTIES
Chapter XII. JURISDICTION OF THE LOCAL ORGANS OF THE SOVIETS
From Voter to National Government—Russia and U. S. A.6
V. THE PEASANTS AND THE LAND
VI. THE BOLSHEVIKI AND THE PEASANTS
VII. THE RED TERROR
Arrest of Right Socialists-Revolutionaries
Arrest of a Priest
Struggle Against Counter-Revolutionaries
House Committee Fined
The Arrest of Speculators
VIII. INDUSTRY UNDER SOVIET CONTROL
IX. THE NATIONALIZATION OF INDUSTRY—I
X. THE NATIONALIZATION OF INDUSTRY—II
XI. FREEDOM OF PRESS AND ASSEMBLY
Obligatory Regulation No. 27
The Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press
Decree Regulating Right of Public Associations and Meetings
XII “THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT”
XIII. STATE COMMUNISM AND LABOR CONSCRIPTION
Article I. On Compulsory Labor
Decree of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Council of Defense on the First Revolutionary Labor Army
Order to the First Revolutionary Labor Army
XIV. LET THE VERDICT BE RENDERED
FINIS
I. Decree Regarding Grain Control
II. Regulation Concerning the Administration of National Undertakings
Part I
Part II
Part III
III. Instructions on Workers’ Control
(Official Text)
THE END
Отрывок из книги
John Spargo
A Critical Examination of the Actual Workings of Bolshevism in Russia
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Let us examine, briefly, the conditions under which the franchise is to be exercised: we do not find any provision for that secrecy of the ballot which experience and ordinary good sense indicate as the only practicable method of eliminating coercion, intimidation, and vote-trafficking. Nor do we find anything like a uniform method of voting. The holding of elections “conducted according to custom on days fixed by the local Soviets”—themselves elective bodies—makes possible an amount of political manipulation and intrigue which almost staggers the imagination. Not until human beings attain a far greater degree of perfection than has ever yet been attained, so far as there is any record, will it be safe or prudent to endow any set of men with so much arbitrary power over the manner in which their fellows may exercise the electoral franchise.
There is one paragraph in the above-quoted portions of the Constitution of Soviet Russia which alone opens the way to a despotism which is practically unlimited. Paragraph 70 of Chapter XIV provides that: “Detailed instructions regarding the election proceedings and the participation in them of professional and other workers’ organizations are to be issued by the local Soviets, according to the instructions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.” Within the scope of this general statement every essential principle of representative government can be lawfully abrogated. Elsewhere it has been shown that trades-unions have been denied the right to nominate or vote for candidates unless “their declared relations to the Soviet Government are approved by the Soviet authorities”; that parties are permitted to nominate only such candidates as are acceptable to, and approved by, the central authority; that specific orders to elect certain favored candidates have actually been issued by responsible officials. Within the scope of Paragraph 70 of Chapter XIV, all these things are clearly permissible. No limit to the “instructions” which may be given by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee is provided by the Constitution itself. It cannot be argued that the danger of evil practices occurring is an imaginary one merely; the concrete examples cited in the previous chapter show that the danger is a very real one.
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